Once murky Galveston Bay riding tide of healthier days
Groups’ report notes improvement but warns of challenges
When Robert C. Hoskins was a boy, Galveston Bay was a murky mess. Today, however, water quality is much improved as a result of the U.S. Clean Water Act.
“Growing up around here and on these bays, I have seen great improvement in the water, mostly in clarity over the years. Actually it’s been about 50 years I’ve been out playing on the bays,” said Hoskins, Baytown’s Mayor Pro Tem, with the bay in the background. “That is encouraging, but more is needed.”
It’s a sentiment shared by members of the Galveston Bay Foundation and the Houston Advanced Research Center, who on Wednesday released their second Galveston Bay Report Card, using a grading scale that goes from A to F.
This year, the bay got a C, the same overall grade as last year. While the grade reflects improvement in the watershed’s overall health, it also acknowledges the tremendous challenges the bay faces, such as habitat loss, pollution, climate change and invasive species.
“We label this as the bay is faring well for now but there’s a lot of work that needs to be done,” said Bob Stokes, the foundation’s president. “We can’t take this for granted that the health of the bay will remain a C if we don’t continue to put time, resources and money into the health of Galveston Bay.”
“We’re not going to get a straight A bay tomorrow, but we can plot a path hopefully 10, 20, 50 years down the road to improve the health of the bay.” Bob Stokes, Galveston Bay Foundation president
One of the biggest threats facing the bay is habitat loss, according to the report. Nowhere is that more evident than the destruction of the bay’s wetlands, which play a crucial role in the watershed’s health.
Wetlands act like a watershed’s kidneys, filtering out pollution that would otherwise run into the bay. They also provide some flood control by absorbing rainfall and slowly releasing it back to the watershed.
Sea grasses returning
Even with federal regulations in place to preserve wetlands, Galveston Bay lost 30,000 acres of freshwater and saltwater wetlands from 1953 to 1989, plus an additional 13,538 acres of freshwater wetlands between 1996 and 2010.
Lisa Gonzalez, the research center’s president, said the group does not have access to more recent data regarding the loss of wetlands, but it will likely show a similar picture when it is released.
“We do know we continue to see losses in freshwater wetlands, and that freshwater wetlands exist in the upper parts of Galveston Bay watershed, and that’s where we love to put neighborhoods, unfortunately,” she said. “We are also still dealing with historic losses of sea grasses throughout the bay, though there has been some recovery in areas such as West Bay where we’re starting to see some sea grasses come back.”
Stokes said the foundation and center hope that the state of Texas uses the money allocated from the BP oil spill settlement to continue to help with coastal habitat restoration. In Galveston Bay, that could mean the further protection of wetlands, sea grasses and oyster reefs, which also suffered a major blow by Hurricane Ike in 2008.
Oil spills have long played a role in fouling the bay’s waters. In 2014, more than 168,000 gallons of oil spilled into the Houston Ship Channel where a barge collided with an oil tanker.
‘Not all doom and gloom’
That spill and others prompted the groups to give the bay a D in the pollution category last year. This year, however, the bay got a C in that category because less oil was been spilled in 2015, the year on which the 2016 report card is based.
“It’s not all doom and gloom,” Gonzalez said.
In fact, the authors of the report that goes with the watershed’s report card say the bay is actually getting cleaner thanks to the relief provided by the Clean Water Act enacted in 1972.
Before that benchmark environmental law was passed, the bay was foul, full of trash, oil and pollution from the petrochemical plants that line the bay.
While some pollution continues to be a threat, the bay has been brought back to life through efforts to restrict dumping waste into the water, and the rivers that feed it, and better watershed planning.
Still, some of the old “legacy” pollution remains, offsetting strides made to clean up the bay.
“For instance, we have a situation just upstream here on the San Jacinto River that needs to be addressed in short order and not be allowed to be left as is,” Hoskins said.
He was referencing the San Jacinto Waste Pits, now a federal Superfund site. Texas officials discovered the pits in 2005 along the river, between Channelview and the small town of Highlands.
Economic significance
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency determined that tugboats pushed barges of waste sludge from a Pasadena paper mill to the pits for offloading and storage in the 1960s.
The pits contain several hazardous substances including dioxin, which are highly toxic carcinogens linked to numerous potential health risks including birth defects and cancer.
The EPA is expected to soon decide whether to leave the waste on-site or remove it.
Stokes said given the tremendous economic significance of Galveston Bay to communities like Baytown and others, it’s imperative that its overall health continues to improve.
“We’re not going to get a straight A bay tomorrow, but we can plot a path hopefully 10, 20, 50 years down the road to improve the health of the bay,” he said.